Fellow writers! I have a pricing question. Oy! It's like plucking a random figure out of the air and hoping it's not too low or that if it's high enough, it sticks.

I have a white paper project on my radar. The topic is right in my wheelhouse of domain experience. My content manager/editor has suggested a quote per stage of the project. So, $ for research, $ for detailed outline, $ for draft, $ for revision. How much time is the average for each of these? I've only recently finished a full-time contract, so I haven't had to think about time taken, in ages. ﻿

I have a former client looking for someone to do some web copy and a 2 page brochure. I'm in a full-time product marketing contract at the moment, so I've offered to pass on a couple of names. If you've got the space to take on a small project, please hit me up with a link to your web and email. Client is in Sydney, but the work can be done remotely, of course. Thanks!﻿

I tweeted to a Buzzfeed article the other day. It was twenty-something words that mean something different to a writer. I tweeted that I didn't think of myself as a writer, but the listicle made me wish I was.

I don't see myself as a writer, because I don't write fiction.

I don't have an Evernote full of ideas. I have an Evernote full of links to other people's ideas, industry news, "how to write" tips. I'm a commercial writer. I've been paid to write other people's ideas. I procrastinate over that so much, though, I hate it. I hate that I have to write something and I put it off, and put it off. And then I get into the flow of the writing, and then I love what I've written. And then I hate getting the feedback. Unless it's good.#blog ﻿

Freshdesk has just launched their ITIL solution -- Freshservice. I've signed up for a trial. Nice onboarding. Flexible SLAs. There's also a relational CMDB, but no obvious service catalogue. I don't know what the price is. Anyone else played with it yet?﻿

I created an account the other day. On the surface it looks interesting. Simpler than most and probably good enough for companies/organizations of a certain size.

However, I feel strongly about tools that are too 'best practice'-y out of the box. That tends to, in my opinion, to not be aligned with the situational reality of the organization and, in some cases, can atrophy less mature (read: technically focused) organizations away from a service oriented structure because it focuses too much on the actual execution of the process as opposed to understanding outcomes and expectations that the process is striving to meet.

Throw in the fact that most organizations do the same with their process frameworks OOTB (with ITIL and ITIL-like frameworks. wink wink) and it is a recipe for collisions, misunderstanding and not fun things.

Hi all,I have a question about subscribers, autoresponders, and giving away free whitepapers.

Do you offer the free white paper and then ask for email address, OR do you ask for the subscription and offer the free white paper as a thankyou? Do you find one way converts better than the other?

I've been building my list on Campaign Monitor, but am not sure about the whitepaper download piece... what do you guys prefer doing in terms of where to host and track the downloads and subsequently capture the email address? ﻿

Gone are the days when IT teams had to be down in a windowless basement with the servers and switches. Cloud technology and consumer apps have come along bringing new expectations of support and operations with them. In this presentation you’ll:

- Discover how corporate IT is evolving to take on more of a consulting role, where the support is less about system uptimes and more about helping people get the most from workplace tech- Find out how you can still run a lean IT team while supporting a growing number of applications and service providers, using Zendesk’s support platform- Learn some Zendesk tips and tricks for managing the different kinds of requests between you and your customers and you and your Google Apps provider.

*One device will be given to a randomly selected attendee.﻿

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This Hangout On Air is hosted by The Gooru. The live video broadcast will begin soon.

Do we have any licensed software assessors in the house? I'm confused by the Mandatory Assessment Criteria and would just like to see if I understand things right. I may need to contact +AXELOS, I guess. Umm. so. There's Bronze, Silver and Gold. Say, for example, I was a vendor with with a tool that was great at incident management. I could nominate to have my solution be assessed against that process. Must it tick all 38 points of the IM process to be considered compliant? ﻿